The present invention relates to a method of and an apparatus for discriminating information including a pattern or a sequence of patterns.
When discriminating or identifying a measured pattern, there have been in general employed processing methods as follows. Namely, a method in which analogy or similarity is computed through a correlation analysis between an input pattern and registered standard patterns, a method using a Fourier transformation to attain a frequency component, and a method in which a regression line is attained have been commonly adopted. In the method achieving the correlation analysis, a sum of products is required to be computed from the measured patterns and the registered standard patterns. Since a great number of computations are necessary, when a large number of standard patterns are to be registered, a realtime pattern discrimination cannot be easily processed. Furthermore, when an input pattern analogous to a standard pattern is different in size from the standard pattern, the input pattern cannot be discriminated. In the method utilizing the Fourier transformation to obtain a frequency component, a pattern associated with a vibration or an oscillation can be discriminated. However, since this method does not handle a waveform itself, it has been difficult to identify a shape or contour of a pattern. In the method generating a regression line, a pattern is beforehand assumed to be a direct line to attain a line most analogous thereto. This method is hence attended with a problem that a complicated waveform cannot be appropriately discriminated.
Moreover, an apparatus has been put to practice in which an image attained from an image input apparatus such as an industrial television (ITV) camera is processed to measure a distance to the image. The representative processing of this apparatus has been limited to an operation in which the apparatus extracts portions (edges) where the brightness abruptly varies in the image to collate characteristic quantities of the edges with each other. Consequently, this method has a problem that the distance measurement can be achieved only with respect to the edges. In other words, the distance cannot be measured for the other portions, which constitute most portions of the image.